“Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”—Alasdair Gray.

“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

These 33 words, it seems, are all most of them need to convince themselves they're living in a Michael Crichton novel, and they're an army of Davids, each lockstep blogpost slinging another shiny wet pebble from the brook at the glowering forehead of the Giant Green Climate Machine. And did you know that Al Gore is rich and Michael Moore is fat?

Few have stopped to think that 'adding in the real temp[erature]s' is a curious way to hide a decline in global temperatures, let alone that a decline in global temperatures for the past half-century would be hard to cover up. Even fewer have bothered to examine the context. What all this suggests to me is that the CRU scientists are probably right, and that most of the 'climate sceptics' are anything but sceptics.

49 Comments:

Monbiot's call for resignation is indeed bollocks. Other than with a full independent investigation that proves some kind of fraud, it's jumping the gun. To his credit, though, he's not concentrating on the "hiding the decline"-like ones, but on some that to me look worth investigating, like the ones that talk about avoiding FOI requests.

The bitchy emails are an amusing sideshow. I know from your novels that you have some experience with computer code. I suggest that you look at some of the very interesting blog analysis of the programs created by the CRU to manipulate (neutral term) the data before you jump to judgement about "right-wing" deniers.

Michael Tobin has a reasonable answer to the general complaints about software:http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2009/11/interesting-gripe.html

(In summary- the scientists are massively underresourced, and will write commercial level code when they get the same resources as companies, but oddly enough all anyone ever calls them is data manipulating scum and refuses them money)

If you are saying that Professor Jones' remark shows he was so totally incompetent at even "hiding the decline" that he accidentally doubled it I think you are misinterpreting.

We have fraud, breaches of the law (FoI) & scientific crimes of faking & hiding data, tampering with peer review (note how much of the alarmist case has been based on sceptics not being alllowed peer review) & attempting to get sceptics fired. And that is only in the emaqils.

The actual released data turns out to be rubbish This isn't science, it's gradeschool for people with big data sets".

Monbiot's resignation call is clearly simply an attempt to cauterise the bleeding.

With his normal skill Guthrie has gone to the heart of the matter saying "In summary- the scientists are massively underresourced". In fact Prof Jones himself has been granted £13.7 million so not being well paid is, decidedly, not the reason for their fraud - the exact opposite indeed.

What we are seeing is what Richard Feynman called "cargo cult science" where one gets the white coats & humming computers with no trace of the basic principles of what might be summed up as scepticism. If the entire warming alarmist community had not been wholly corrupt cargo cultists, in the pay of an equally corrupt government wanting fake scare stories for power & unfit to shine the shoes of real scientists like McIntyre then this could not have got as far as it did.

People who have obtained money by this fraud should be imprisoned. Those who have, or should have, known what was going on & kept silent can have no place in any organisation which has any claim to being scientific. Catastrophic global warming is a total fraud, more damaging than Lysenkoism or witch burning. & has been used, deliberately, by wholly corrupt government to enhance its power. Fascism should be opposed.

Neil, Neil, Neil. If you read the link I gave, you would have noticed that Tobis provided at least one example of how underfunded research actually is, NCAR being a body which "provides the university science and teaching community with the tools, facilities, and support required to perform innovative research."

THis 13.7 million you mention, what do you think it is spent on, and by whom? Does it go into his bank account so he can buy a nice house with the interest and pay a couple of post-docs peanuts to do the actual research? Maybe it pays for nobbling the satellites which really show the earth is cooling and the ice caps gaining mass?

(In summary- the scientists are massively underresourced, and will write commercial level code

You must not have to deal with Oracle much.

But, seriously folks.

I myself do not slag the scientists much for employing guys who wrote the crappy code. You pay a guy university wages and ask him to work at or past his level of competency, bad things will happen.

But there are ways to make code better with limited resources. This is a problem that's been solved over and over again. If they'd open-sourced the code and said 'hey, we've got this problem and need help' past history says the code would have been made better.

I don't know where he spends it Guthrie he hasn't said. Is that how you think he spent the £13.7 mill? Must be a pretty good house. The point is that your defence of their lying - that they haven't the money to do real science, which you haven't withdrawn, clearly merely represents the very highest standard of honesty of which you in particular & indeed any alarmist who doesn't agree you are lying, is capable.

I note your dismissal of Feynman as someone knowing so much less science than you that it is not worth your time rising from your seat to answer him. I also recognise that as the pinnacle of honesty of which you & most alarmists are capable & indeed on which the entire corrupt case is built.

How odd, my comment hasn't appeared yet. Notice that Neal accuses people of lying, without any evidence. Note also that he hasn't a clue what the 13.7 million was spent on, but is absolutely sure it was spent wrongly.

Also his reading comprehension is very poor, because I did not diss Feynman, I pointed out that his comparison to cargo cult science was complete nonsense. Have you read the essay that the concept is explained in? Have you any idea what goes on in climatology?

When Tshombe was running Congo he got many billions in foreign aid (he was a good anti-communist). Nobody knows, for sure, where it went though the locals didn't get it - so Gutless thinks thats all right then.

"I did not diss Feynman, I pointed out that his comparison to cargo cult science was complete nonsense" --- from the mouths of babes & ducklings & incidentally you didn't point out - you asserted, specifically refusing to say why.

Ahh yes, you said "where one gets the white coats & humming computers with no trace of the basic principles of what might be summed up as scepticism."but declined to provide any evidence. I suggest you go read the IPCC fourth report, which summarises the various bits of research done over the last few decades. In no way can that be called cargo cult science. You are the one making the comparison, therefore you should be able to back it up....

TGuthrie the fact is these people have been "juggling" the figures": "doing everything to hide the decline"; using politics to subvert peer review rather than addressing the issues; hiding all the data on which their alleged conclusions are based in case somebody tries to disprove it; that every "error" is in the same direction (which is statistically impossible if it is honest error); the recently discoverd New Zealand fraud proving it is endemic; the fact that the people claiming to make statistical models are ignorant of how to do so: there there is no actual evidence of unnatural warming & that the globe is cooling proves it to any impartial source.

You may, if you wish, call Mystic meg a scientist, & I am certain you would if she predicted the triumph of eco-Fascisim, but not these people.

I note that you are still claiming £13.7 million is "underfunded" & recognise that as the very highest standard of honesty of which a parasitic, Luddite, eco-Fascist like you is ever capable & thus equal to what you say about the IPCC.

My apologies to everyone else on here. Neil seems even more obtuse than usual. Here, you are lying, plain and simple. There is no evidence showing they have cooked the books, none that errors are in the same direction, the globe is still warming, despite your protestations, and for one who prates on about statistics, you ignore the fact that the current temps are still statistically significant in warming...

Does anyone else get bored with fact free rants from uninformed people?On warming:http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/garbage-is-forever/

On the rest of Neils anti-scientific rant, I'm sure you are all intelligent enough to find the IPCC reports and Realclimate.

Eric Stephen Raymond's website has the program used to fake the hockey stick. Clear proof of overt fraud; clear as the file-marks on Piltdown Man's teeth.

This will be in the history books.

Evolution is real, though Piltdown Man is a proven fraud. Global Warming is real, though the hockey stick is a proven fraud. Global Warming will be real when Al Gore's carbon fraud is exposed. Wheat farming in Greenland is real. Urban heat islands are real. I write from central Illinois; twenty years ago everyone had a snowmobile. Now, not till Wisconsin.

Since Bruce would simply be copying Professor Wegman's findings to Congress of Mann & the Hockeystickists:

"obscure and incomplete; criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling; misuse in principal component analysis; the error may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimatology studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians; authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus ‘independent studies’ may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface; This committee does not believe that web logs are an appropriate forum for the scientific debate on this issue.It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community; haphazardly and grudgingly done; I peer review, which was not necessarily independent; sufficiently politicized that this community can hardly reassess their public positions.

Simply to repeat these conclusions would hardly make him famous.

Once again Guthrie you doemonstrate that not only are you a corrupt, eco-fascist parasite but that you are an ignorant, corrupt lying, eco-fascist, Luddite parasite who knows nothing of the documentation you use in your own case. I await your retraction of the claim that $13.7 million is "underfunded" while acknowledging it represents the very highest standard of honestly of you are capable.

Unfortunately, Eric Raymond has tripped over his cock. If you head over to John Graham-Cumming's blog, you will learn that the famous line in that program is a COMMENT. As in, commented out. As in, not actually compiled, interpreted, or executed.

I think it's high time that some people grasped that ESR isn't actually the Pope. He's just some bloke, and specifically, one who's been spectacularly wrong about all political issues for the last 10 years or so. Oh, and he also thinks (going by his recent diva snit on hackernews) that you should parse html with regular expressions.

He certainly contributed immensely to Linux, but then that is now in the past, and in any case doesn't grant him any special authority about climatology.

I don't think I've been called an eco-fascist before for pointing out that you don't know what you are talking about. As for Wegman, apart from the deliberately partisan nature of the approach, his comments do not affect the scientific results in any meaningful way:http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/the-missing-piece-at-the-wegman-hearing/

I'll say it again really slowly for Neil - The hockey stick still exists, because even if you do what WEgman wanted, it is still a hockey stick shape.

I'm sure I've told him this before in other places. Is there any sort of blog policy for dealing with gratuitous personal insults? I'd demand a duel, but thats illegal these days.

That aside, he has yet to substantiate anything regarding 13.7 million and what it was actually spent on.

Neil - gratuitous personal insults will not be tolerated here, and if in any future comment you repeat anything like the insults in your last comment you'll find it and all further comments from you deleted on sight.

Nice snark there, Neil. Highest standard of honesty to which he aspires, the implication being that I have low standards...

I don't mind a few words here and there, but an entire sentence or two devoted to labelling me with whatever nasty words you can come up with is going a bit far.

But let me see. So far you've claimed that 13.7 million has been given to Prof Jones, but I've no idea where you got the amount from, and you don't know what it was spent on. (Heres a hint - I've never heard of recievers of a grant not giving a good chunck of it straight to the institute they work at merely to pay for floorspace, electricity, cleaning etc) It is unclear how I am supposed to prove that 13.7 million is underfunded, compared to what exactly? How much do you think it costs to write code, gather data and so on? You are in effect asking me to prove something that it is your job to prove in the first place.

You've also failed to substantiate why the hockey stick is broken, instead of merely having been somewhat less accurate than is possible.

Ah, found a source for the 13.7 million, entertainingly enough via the David Icke forums...

On Google documents is a breakdown of projects which Jones has been involved in from 1993 to 2009, ie 16 years. In most of these projects, Jones is not the only person involved, they are part of a team and clearly an unspecified number of others will be involved as well to help do the donkey work. For example we have a '91 to '93 project involving Prof Wigley, Dr HUlme and Prof Jones on "climate change detection and GCM model validation". For £179,484. Oddly enough I don't see that paying for a nice house in the country for Prof Jones.

Lets see what else. He gets £4,800 all to himself for "Extended flow records at key locations in England and Wales, for 3 months in 1994. Thats not a lot of money.

Then there is SWURVE, for which he is down for £123,600 for 4 years work. This is an EU project studying water use in the coming climate changes. Oddly enough the CRU at UEA is down as a team, which suggests that Jones is not working alone...http://www.ncl.ac.uk/swurve/partners.html#team4uea

So, to summarise, it is clear that although Jones et al are making a career in this, the accusations of being 13.7 million richer are made only by completely ignoring the work which is actually being done (I don't seem to recall hearing about the victims of his alleged scams complaining about not getting their moneys worth) and are in fact completely baseless.

No dispute then about £13.7 being the true total. Nor retraction of the claim they are underfunded.

The ultimate victims of this fraud are us, as taxpayers. You may claim to have avoided seeing any complaints but there have been a number. That government ministers have not complained that they were unknowingly duped into paying this money to Jones, which would have got us 2 Ansari X-Prizes, tends to confirm my point that the controllers of this fraud are not primarily the scientists but the politicians who need a good scare story to control us.

The Hockeystick is not broken - it is shattered. See Wegman's remarks for the polite assessment of the either frauds or scientific illiterates who created it.

Neil, its not a true total, because the money didn't go to Jones himself to spend on gadgets/ gizmos. Its not a true total because it ignores the wide variety of stuff the money was handed over for. Its not a true total because it is taken out of context and is from 16 years, and propagandising abotu 13.7 million without mentioning the tiny bit about teams of people over 16 years is just that, propaganda.

Not that it has ever stopped you in the past.

And once again you ignore my posting of evidence, ie the hockey stick you get from following Wegmans advice, and the fact that the latest IPCC report has a stonking great hockey stick in it.

Face it Neil, you've lost. All those reading this blog who agree with me say aye.

2)Hush naive child! All credit to the Real Men in the sweat and dust of the Science Arena! Red in tooth and claw, they ferret out Truth in a competition too coarse for women and children to see! Respect their sweaty authority.

4) Silence before your betters, ignorant prole! The White Gods in their White Lab coats speak only to Peer-reviewed journals, whichspeak only to God. Worship your betters, and be edified by the homilies they dumb down till even you can understand. Respect the divine authority of the Lords of Light.

1> OMG TEH SCIENTISTS ARE LYING TO US!2> See I was right all along, they've been manipulating data3>They should all be sacked.4>This throws into question the very assertion of global warming, and also shows the greed of the scientists who were gathering such grants in.

5) *Sigh* So what exactly to the e-mails mean?

6> THey mean we're being lied to.7) But how, in what way?8> Look at the coding!9) Here's explanations for that (url)

10> And they have been suppressing papers from peer review!11) Except of course they havn't, and the journal they were criticising had half its editorial board resign because of the way the editor was pushing through anti-AGW papers. 12> But Gavin got 13.7 million for this, he's in it for the money.13) Over 16 years, and you do know that grants aren't just given to someone to line their own pockets, there are other costs involved?14> Look at the data manipulation!15) Where? 16> Here, look, some odd words!17) And what do they affect? You do know that that little sign there means they don't appear in the running of the program?18> *silence*19> These e-mails prove that the scientists are conspiring against us.20) We already covered that.21> But the scientists are lying and making data up.22) No THey aren't, you stupid fucker, otherwise you'd be able to demonstrate it.23> You called me a bad word, I'm going to tell on you, waaaahhh.

Ah Neil, you asserted that Cru etc were carrying out cargo cult science. I don't see hwo you can ask me to prove that they were not when you didn't even give any evidence or argument to show how they were engaging in cargo cult science.

Yes, thats right Neil, you have to somehow show that CRU were following the motions of science (Gather evidence, formulate hypotheses, test them, get them published in the peer reviewed literature) but without any content.

Oh, wait, nobodies shown that their publications were wrong and indeed they are the heart of the IPCC. Perhaps you hypothesis is flawed?

Tell you what, I'll agree that 13.7 million over 16 years is enough money to do what they did and you agree that they aren't doing cargo cult science.

Professor Phil Jones said "I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it."http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/13/cru_missing/

So he has proven he is doing cargo cult science without any help from me.

Presumably this explains why, by your standards, nobody has proven him wrong but it certainly [proves he & those who associate with him are no scientists.

Incidentally according to their briefing of 1 newspaper on Sunday they are now going to release the data 7 according to their briefing of another paper it has been destroyed. I guess that also displays the highest standard of honesty alarmists aspire to.

Bruce: Silence before your betters, ignorant prole! The White Gods in their White Lab coats speak only to Peer-reviewed journals, whichspeak only to God. Worship your betters, and be edified by the homilies they dumb down till even you can understand. Respect the divine authority of the Lords of Light.

Do you really think that's the attitude you see at, say, RealClimate.org? Have you gone through the long comments threads where the scientists patiently respond to everyone but trolls?

Oh dear. Neil, you are aware that "trying to find something wrong with it" isn't how you do science? Especially not with this stuff. What you actually do is make up your own model and database and stuff using the usual methods, and if it matches Jones et al, you can slap each other on the back. If it doesn't match, then you can accuse them of doing something wrong.

Moreover you don't know who he was talking to, after all, Macintyre hit them with what, 4 or 5 FOI requiests a day. So, still no evidence there then.

The rest of your comment is somewhat garbled. I have heard about data destruction, but oddly enough at the times we were talking about CRU was under no obligation to keep data, when the original data was still with the original sources. Unfortunately for people like you, science has professional standards to keep up, old fashioned though they are.

Ken, thats right. Let us not also forget the blogs by everyone from Chris Colose to Tim LAmbert via unnamed statistician Tamino. And all those who have contributed to online explanatory centres which break things down nice and simply for easy comprehension, oh, and all that stuff available from GISS and the IPCC.

Lets put it this way - I think you can find more quality information about climate change online for free than you can for university level chemistry, where everything is hidden behind paywalls or in expensive textbooks.

Oh, and Neil, I looked up that quote. According to Macintyre, it comes from an e-mail exchange with Warwick Hughes, a noted denialist and hater of science who supports people like Jaworoski. In this case, although Jones used intemperate language, the simple fact is that Hughes is not even worth considering. And if that makes me an ivory tower academic, tough. Just let me know when I can come and audit your books.

Ken- I really think that's the attitude at Copenhagen. Policies must be right since they are based on peer-reviwed literature "even if we have to redefine what the peer-reviewed literature is".It's the email attitude. Any scientist could say, 'here's my basic dataset, I'm busy, f- off moron'. But "I'll delete my data"?

I gather you still devoutly believe in the hockey stick. After all, Stephen McIntyre is really annoying! Proves he's wrong. (Like Huxley. Soapy Sam was much smoother.) Whereas the more angular emails are just 'how science really works'.

Red Ken, why do I doubt that you support the Make Al Gore a Billionaire carbon scam? Maybe Tipper's rock and roll side got to you?

RealClimate can display impressive patience with ignorance. And as Bjorn Lomburg just said, Global Warming is real.

Apparently Monbiot's wishes will be (kind of) fulfilled, as Phil Brown has announced he's stepping down from his position... for as long as is needed to complete an investigation. A middle ground between what he suggested and my alternative on the first comment. Sounds about right to calm down the hysteria.

Indeed Nacho - Jonses' remark "What is most important is that CRU continues its world-leading research with as little interruption and diversion as possible," put it in context. The entire warming theory depends on this world leading unit, which has been proven to be merely a "cargo cult" fraud.

Guthrie once again you have hit the nail - "Oh dear. Neil, you are aware that "trying to find something wrong with it" isn't how you do science?"

That is indeed how you do it. If you ain't willing to provide data to help others do that you ain't a scientist.

Last time I ran into Warwick huighes junk was a a few years ago, someone tried to use them in support of their position. Needless to say, they were horribly confused, as was Warwick HUghes. He is well known for being convinced that AGW is a fraud, and is determined to prove that it is. Therefore they are unable to approach the data impartially...

Anonymous (third comment from the top) - it was the 'blog analysis' of the code and comments that alerted me to what a mare's nest the whole 'scandal' is. To see people jumping up and down over comments on a program whose purpose they don't know, written in a language they don't understand, and showing no comprehension of the vast differences in what counts as good practice in writing code for a one-off science job versus writing commercial and admin software, is ... quite a learning experience, shall we say.

The CRU is the centre where the data from around the world is supposed to have been collated & thus proven global warming (thus allegedly trumping the US finding that on US data the warmest year was 1934). If their conclusions are biased or their dat missing (both are the case) then there is no evidence of CAGW.

Guthrie you clearly don't know that Stephen McIntyre was able to check the GISS data, because it hadn't been destroyed, found it was a mess & on recalculation proved the warmest recorded year was 1934. This was accepted by GISS. The alarmist reaction was to say that this was just the USA & the world figures collated by the CRU were credible world figures. Clearly that was nonsense. How fortunate for the alarmists that jones & co aren't scientists & destroyed their data or McIntyre could have proven the same about their figures.

"Plant migration" is at best an inprecise & subjective case, ice is on averahge expanding since 90% of the ice is in Antarctica. The stratospheric cooling is one of the original reasons for doubting this since according to the CO2 theory it should be the place showing the first & greatest warming - which you accept it isn't.